Richard Milhous Nixon
Born: January 19, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California
Died: April 22, 1984 in New York City, New York
Political Party: Republican
First Term: 1969-1973
First Term Vice President: Spiro T. Agnew
Second Term: 1973-1974
Second Term Vice President: Gerald R. Ford
Grade: B-
Theme: Demographics

THESIS
Richard Milhous Nixon was a president who was moving along very smoothly. But then some events stirred up and he ended up resigning. Before all this though, great things happened in our country. The Chemical Weapons Treaty occured with Russia to stop producing chemical weapons and destroy existing stock piles. Taxes were lessened and inflation was combatted. We even got some men to land on the Moon. When looking back, a lot of good came out from Nixon's presidency. If it weren't for the resignatiion due to the Watergate scandal, I think he could have recieved a solid A. But nobody's perfect. For this, he deserves a B-.
DEMOGRAPHICS
During Richard Nixon's presidency, there was really only one main thing that affected the demographics of our nation. This event was the Vietnam War. After this was all said and done, 58,000 men died from the United States. Though this number was not a big indentation to our country's total population, it still affected the demographics. In general, as time goes on, populatios increase as a result of growing families. With 58,000 men gone, it made a decent impact. All those lost men could have made our population larger today. There's no true saying how much those men could have contributed to population increase in the future. Al we know is that the population lost all of those men of service in the years of the war.
GOALS
In Richard Nixon's first inaugural address, he stated "We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at each other." What he was referring to was most likely the Vietnam War and some of the US/ Russia conflicts. I do think he accomplished this saying because the United States tried to solve things correctly in the Vietnam War and we agreed with Russia to stop chemical weapons. Later in Nixon's second inaugural address, he restates how America had had such an impact on the world with the world wars to innovations to men on the moon. The United States were a well known name that other nations respected. Unfortunately, I do not think he kept this going. By Richard Nixon resigning, it put out a strange image of America. A country should be only as good as there leader. So what does tha say about us when our head man leaves? It does not seem like our country was admired for this event.
RELATIONSHIP WITH CONGRESS
With Richard Nixon as a republican, and congress being majority democratic, it was going to be tough to have a smooth relationship between the two. All throughout Nixon's presidency, there were many vetoes by Nixon followed by overrides by congress. This was shown in the Vietnam war with various events like actions in Cambodia. Although it was a little rocky here and there, the two managed to get some things accomplished like Wage- Price controls, Revenue Sharings, Law and Order, and the Consumer Product Safety Act. Just like any previous president, all things worked out in the end.
PRESIDENT AND ADMINSTRATION ACTIONS
The whole space exploration and man on the moon events were most definitely the best things to come out of Richard Nixon's presidency. On July 20, 1969, millions watched as one man made history. This spectacular achievement gave humanity positive hopes and dreams to think about what the future could hold. People now had the confidence along with determination that almost anything was possible. After this, a numerous amount of space adventures carried on to see what else we could learn. But not only did it provide us with confidence but we also beat the Soviets to the moon. We had been in a space race with them. They may have beaten us with Sputnik, but we got the final win with Neil Armstrong. With the help of Richard Nixon and his administration for allowing all of this to happen, we still go out today, exploring the wonders of the universe
FUTURE IMPACTS
Although it is a bad decision, the entire resignation of Richard Nixon impacted future generations of presidents. Impeachment was going to be certain for him. So instead of manning up and facing the consequences, he took matters into his own hands and decided to leave on his own terms. This seems like it would send messages to future generations saying that it is okay to qui if things aren't going correctly. After it was all over, Nixon's image didn't look to good. So far, no president has done similar things like Richard Nixon. Bill Clinton came close but not quite. Anyways, I think that this whole fiasco showed that it isn't cool to do unethical things while being president.
CONCLUSION
In the end, Richard Nixon was not a bad president. He was clear sailing until he hit a storm. Luckily the storm didn't prevent him from ruining our country. He was able to calmly get himself out of it. So with some good and some bad all throughout, Richard Nixon deserves the B-.



Bibliography

DeGregorio, William A. "Richard Nixon" The Complete Book of US Presidents: From George Washington to Bill Clinton. New York: Wing, 1997. 580 - 601. Print.

Kennedy, David M., Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas A. Bailey. The American Pageant. 12th ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. Print.